Apparently, all signs in the economists’ magic 8-balls point to recovery and it looks like we missed Great Depression: The Sequel, after all. But for somebody who remembers the recession in the early 1990s, the past year has been an unwelcome flashback.

Of course, this time I have been in a much better position than the last time around. When Lehman Bros went bankrupt, I got the news in a tiny Swiss hotel, on a road trip covering the Champions Hockey League. I was in a bubble of my own, and the global financial crisis barely registered.

Not that being a freelance writer is the smartest career move in tough times, but this time it’s a choice I’ve made voluntarily, and enjoy. Fifteen years ago, I was fresh out of business school, with all the business knowledge in the world still in my brain, but nothing to use it for.

Absolutely no-one was hiring.

Finding employment was especially hard for somebody who wanted to be a player agent.

Or at least in sports.

Having sent my resumé out to all the fancy big brand companies that I truly thought I wanted to work at, and only getting rejection letters in return, and having even been turned down at a small local radio station, I decided to show people what I could do, instead of telling them.

After all, I was a Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration graduate, with a degree in marketing! (Then, as now, I realized I needed a snappy acronym to really impress somebody).

I would look at the product called Risto, and I would create the best marketing campaign for him – or bust.

Back in 1991, email was in its infancy. Nobody, outside the academia, was emailing anybody. Direct mail was still the way to go. I needed paper, envelopes, and stamps.

My approaches varied from printing my resumé and cover letter on colorful paper, to adding images (again, in 1991, copying and pasting meant copying and pasting), to telling stories where I was a character to sending prospects coupons where they could either book a meeting with Risto, or – the lucky ones – book a week’s free sample of Risto’s work.

My results didn’t vary.

I got nothing.

Being a sensitive 20-something who reads a lot of books and stories is a wonderful thing. The downside is that he may start to believe in them. During my internship at Tackla Canada in Orillia, Ontario, I had stumbled on “What They Still Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School” by Mark McCormack, the founder and president of IMG, only the most famous sports agency in the world, and I had read it many times since that summer.

One of the secrets Mr. McCormack shares with his readers is the importance of face time. If you just get to talk to the right person, all doors will open. (He may not say it in exactly those words, but that’s how I interpreted it).

By the way, working for free was also one of Mr McCormack’s ideas. Paradoxically, neither one of those tricks worked when I ten years later met the right person at IMG in Stockholm.

However, sports business seemed to be out of the question, but there was still that other dream of mine. Advertising. I’ve always loved commercials, and I’ve always thought of myself as something of a wordsmith, my work worthy of the biggest billboards. (Still do, a few years ago I made a pitch to the Tourism Bureau of Finland, and I am still – desperately – trying to get the Stockholm airport to adopt the ever-so-witty “Arlanda is your landa” slogan).

I had read David Ogilvy’s memoir, I had even written the copy and drafted the artwork for a Christmas campaign for my Dad’s store, making quite an impression. I think.

I had the degree, I had the ideas. What I didn’t have was the right person in front of me, and maybe an understanding of the business, but that would come. First things first.

One Thursday morning in the spring, say, late March, I parked my white Peugeot 205 in downtown Helsinki and walked briskly to the front door of the best Finnish advertising agency. After all, Mr. McCormack, my house guru, had said something that I interpreted along the lines as, “if I just show up in the lobby and say I want to meet the bossman, what are they going to do, throw me out?”

You have to picture this. You’re the CEO of the best – not the biggest, simply the best – ad agency in town. Your receptionist beeps you from the lobby – so far, so good for me – and you come out to see what’s going on.

This is what you see: A young dude, early-20s, bleached jeans, sailor shoes. Longish hair, and a pink – and when I say pink, I mean purplishy pink, let’s not get into it now – woollen sweater. He seems to be nervous because he talksreallyreallyfast.

I guess you say to yourself, "hey, let’s let the boy humor me". You offer him some coffee, he doesn’t drink coffee, so you sit him down in your office and hear him out.

“I’m a recent graduate from the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, and I was wondering if you’d have a job for me,” I said.

“I really don’t, and it’s a shame, because I like your style, showing up like this,” he said.

Never underestimate the value of a human contact. Not to take anything away from Mr. McCormack, but this was the second time I had showed up at an office, looking for a job. About five years earlier, my cousin and I ride our bikes to the offices of the smaller local newspaper, to see if we could be their reporters. When the editor asked us about our experience, I said that I had none, my cousin, the former gas station service guy, said he’d been “in the oil business.” We weren’t hired.

“But what I can do, is give you a contact at another place, and maybe you can work something out. Good luck,” the ad agency CEO added, and went back to creating award-winning advertising.

I walked back to my car, and drove home, still nothing but a young, minor league hockey playing fellow living on unemployment benefits – almost a hockey pro, in other words – but I was pleased with the new contact, and the fact that I had actually done it, and walked into the ad agency.

The other contact didn’t get me a job, either, but it kept my brain busy, and my soul hopeful of a better future.

About a year later, doing odd translation jobs, studying, and playing hockey, I was still at it. I sent a letter to every single NHL club – then 26 – together with my CV, disguised as a hockey scouting report. That ended up in front of the right guy, and sent me on the path I’m on.

In the meantime, the economy had recovered, too.